


Misplaced

by hallowed-vessels (hasbeenhotel)



Category: Subnautica (Video Game), Subnautica: below zero (video game)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, No beta we die like authors, Spy Penglings, i’ll probably rename this at some point if I can think of a better title, obscenely colored sea trucks, well. there’s one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27928156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hasbeenhotel/pseuds/hallowed-vessels
Summary: Sam meets someone new while searching for her missing Spy Pengling.
Kudos: 12





	Misplaced

The day went from clear to blizzarding in under a minute. Sam rushed inside as the first relentless flurries of snow began to come down, shoving the remote in her pocket and leaving her Spy Pengling outside. She tried not to let herself regret it as she ran back inside the shelter of Phi’s bunker doors.

It was built to withstand the cold. She wasn’t.

She waited in her room, warming up with a cup of coffee, for the storm to pass. A part of her wanted to watch the video feed, but it was too staticky to see anything more than blurs, and used up more battery life than she’d like, so she shut it off after a minute or two.

It was a full day before the weather died down enough to go outside. She went to find the little robot, not too worried about how it held up. She would need to check it for damage, though. It wouldn’t be great if it couldn’t withstand the cold like it was supposed to.

Sam surveyed the area where she’d been using it the day before. Nothing. Maybe it was buried under all the snow? She opened her PDA and turned on the little robot’s beacon, grateful that she’d installed those a few days ago.

She turned her head to follow the beacon.

That... couldn’t be right. She turned on the other robot’s beacon, and ran back inside, confirming that the beacons were accurate.

“Sam, are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

Which meant that _somehow_ , her little PengVee had wound up nearly 1,350 meters away, out past Delta Station. Wasn’t that out by the Omega Lab? It had been a while since she’d checked.

“Um,” She turned to Zeta, internally panicking, wondering if she should share this. “I was just thinking, maybe I should take PengGwen out to the Delta Station? They’ve got a lot of pengwings out there, and I think it’s time to start moving on to testing how they interact with the real things.” Her hands shook a little, betraying her lie, so she shoved them into her pockets.

If Zeta thought anything was suspicious, she didn’t say so. “That sounds like a great idea!” She praised instead. “I’m heading over there tomorrow, we can go together.”

“Oh, um, I’d actually really like to do it today. If that’s alright. I’d love to go with you tomorrow, too, though!” So many lies today. She wasn’t a very good liar, and she didn’t like lying, but she didn’t want to know what sort of reprimand she’d receive if she admitted that she’d lost one of the only two prototypes she had for her project. She’d already had to do a lot of begging and convincing to get Alterra to let her make a second before the design was finalized. So she lied like her life depended on it. “You know, the more the merrier... Testing Spy Penglings...” She laughed half-heartedly, her voice dying out at the end.

Zeta could clearly tell that _something_ was up, but she didn’t press the matter, just gave her a sympathetic look and a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll ask Fred to come pick you up in an hour.”

Sam thanked her and disappeared to her room again to prepare. The fact that the beacon hadn’t updated itself to “Destroyed PengVee” gave her hope that it might be above water- those robots were not built for swimming, -but she grabbed a rebreather, some fins, and an oxygen tank. Just in case.

She was pretty sure Fred wouldn’t mind taking her further than the Delta island. He was a little notorious with the management for “lending favors” and taking his sea truck on unauthorized trips. She’d feel bad for getting him into trouble, but hopefully this would go unnoticed.

She hid PengGwen under her bed. If someone was looking for it, they’d definitely find it, but it was good enough that it wasn’t immediately noticeable. Sam thanked Zeta for her help and rushed out to the docks, arriving right as a lurid pink sea truck surfaced. “Do you have to keep it that color? How does it not hurt your eyes?” She laughed.

“It makes it easy to spot underwater!” Fred said in his defense.

“Uh huh.” She rolled her eyes. “And how many times have you mistaken it for a chelicerate?”

“That was _one_ time!”

“If you say so. Anyways, I, um,” She wrung her hands nervously, trying to think of the best way to put it. “I _may_ have misplaced one of my Spy Penglings during a blizzard yesterday? And I think it’s, uh, kinda by Omega Lab?”

Fred gave her a confused look, then it dawned on him what she was asking. “That’s quite the misplacement.”

She let out a nervous laugh. “Um, yeah. I know. But it’s not showing that it’s broken, so, yay!” Sam pulled out her PDA and sent the beacon signal to him.

“Well, I guess you have to believe me now.” He stated, sounding slightly smug. The sea truck roared to life and Sam grabbed onto the hatch’s ladder to keep from falling. “This place is cursed. Things don’t just go missing like that.”

“I still don’t think it’s cursed.”

“Then what took your pengling? And all the supplies that have been going missing since we got here?”

Sam frowned. “Animals?”

“Yeah, sure, an _animal_ managed to take your _not waterproof_ robot more than a kilometer away without damaging it, _and_ without leaving any trace.”

“It might have been a bird. And it disappeared during a blizzard! You know how quickly the snow buries everything.”

“A skyray? Those things aren’t big enough to carry anything.”

“There are other birds. I’ve seen some! ...once or twice.”

“I’m just saying, Sammy. This isn’t normal.”

“Maybe it _is_ normal here.” She huffed. “There’s an explanation, and no, it’s **not** curses. We just haven’t found it yet.”

“If you say so. I’m still not convinced.”

Their conversation shifted to more generic topics while the sea truck swiftly plowed its way through the water. They passed the thermal spires, passed by the purple vents, and wound up in the lilypad biome.

PengVee was definitely underwater, so why wasn’t it broken?

Fred parked the sea truck inside a small hole in a rock suspended in the water by a lilypad. “This is as far as I’ll take you. 337 meters to go, you should be fine to get there and back, I keep a seaglide in here. You can take that. You’ve got your rebreather and an oxygen tank, right?”

“You can’t take me down into the ravine?” Sam asked, anxiety starting to gnaw at her. Yes, she had enough oxygen for that if she moved fast, especially with a seaglide. And there were usually still oxygen plants at this level. But what if something went wrong?

“No way. Not with that squidshark out there.”

And she’d have to get past a squidshark. Right. That wasn’t terrifying at all. She took a few deep breaths and put on her rebreather. “If I die, I’m going to haunt you.” It was supposed to be a joke, but it came out a little too serious for humor.

“Then don’t die, please. I think I’d have a heart attack if you started haunting me.” Fortunately, Fred still took the joke well enough.

“I’ll try.” She double-triple checked her equipment, hesitated for a moment, then forced herself to leave the safety of the sea truck.

The chill of the water always startled her. She flicked on the seaglide and turned off the map and lights, then dove out of the little cave. The squidshark didn’t notice her, and she reached the ravine quickly.

A few curious sea monkeys hovered a little too close, and she gripped the handles of the seaglide tightly as she went deeper, maneuvering to give a lily paddler a wide berth. The meters ticked down quickly.

Sam topped off her oxygen at an oxygen plant as she passed it, taking a second to look around the murky green cave network. There was a cluster of bulbous, green... plants, maybe? clinging to the walls, trailing deeper. Deeper, in the direction of her Spy Pengling.

She kicked her legs and resumed swimming, following the trail. They shimmered pink when she got too close.

There was a lightstick hidden among the roots. Had Alterra been doing research here? She couldn’t remember hearing anything about work in the lilypads, aside from the research going on in the Omega Lab. The lightsticks seemed to lead the same direction as the color-changing plants.

She’d been left a _literally_ glowing trail to her missing robot.

The cave opened up, widening into a cavern. The ceilings, the walls, were _covered_ in swarms of the plants. The only thing that seemed to be free of them was the plateau cropping up in the center and the seabase perched on top of it.

Sam paused, nervously glancing around the cavern for any sign of life. There was a cryptosuchus flitting around a cave entrance on the other side of the cave, but other than that, it seemed barren.

It seemed abandoned. The seabase was certainly of Alterran design, but the outside was covered in layers of grime, barnacles, and algae. No Alterran would allow their home to be such a mess, so surely it _must_ be abandoned.

But the lights were on.

And something had to bring her little PengVee there.

Sam took a deep breath- which made her PDA beep at her for using too much oxygen at once, -and headed for the moonpool, not seeing any hatch on the seabase.

She dove underneath it and latched onto the ladder, pulling herself up out of the water. It was dark in here, but looking around, she spotted a bunch of supply crates and scrap metal littered around the place. There was a PRAWN suit suspended in the middle of the moonpool.

Hadn’t Fred mentioned rumors of a PRAWN suit going missing at some point, when he was talking about his “curse” theory?

Sam made a mental note to report this to Alterra. Then she realized that would require her to explain why she was down here, and redacted her mental note.

PengVee was only a few meters away. She just had to get PengVee, then she could get out of here and never think about it again. This place was starting to unnerve her. She got to her feet and crept down the corridor, wincing at every echo of her footsteps. The bulkhead at the end of the hallway wasn’t locked, thankfully, but it swung over with a painful, rusty screech.

The inside was as much of a mess as the outside. She carefully peeked around- pointedly ignoring the monstrous skull, -searching for any sign of another human being. The place looked lived in, with various supplies on the shelves and some half-disassembled sea truck panelling on the table in the middle. PengVee was still in one piece, thankfully.

She rushed inside to grab the little robot. Sam carefully turned it over in her hands, searching for any sort of damage.

Her anxiety turned to relief. PengVee was fine. Untampered with, as far as she could tell. She put it in her bag, and turned to leave.

She took one step, and something swept her legs out from under her, sending her crashing face-first into the floor. Panicking, she tried to both scramble away and turn around to face whatever- whoever, -had attacked her.

She froze, going slightly cross eyed at the chunk of black metal (was that metal? It didn’t quite look like it?) held inches away from her face.

“What are you doing on my seabase, Alterra?”

Her anxiety levels must have gotten so high her brain short circuited, because Sam blurted out, “Is that a battle axe?” rather than answering the question, feeling oddly calm about the threat to her life.

The very scary lady brandishing the axe looked at her for a second like she’d sprouted a second head, some strange mixture of amusement and complete bafflement. That expression very quickly morphed back into a furious scowl. “It is. And unless you want to get to know the sharp sides of it, you’ll answer my question. What are you doing in my seabase?”

“I was coming to get back my project.” She stated. “Who are you?”

“ **I’m** the one asking questions here, and if you know what’s good for you, Alterra, you’ll mind your own business.” The woman glanced over her shoulder at the table, probably trying to figure out what Sam had taken. “The pengwing thing?”

“Yeah.” She looked at the axe again, eyes tracing the orange-tinted blades, and the random burst of calmness started to fizzle out. “Are you going to...” Her voice faltered.

“Kill you?” She nodded. The woman shrugged. “Maybe. Are you going to rat me out to your superiors if I let you leave?”

“I’m not even supposed to be here.” Sam admitted. “So, no. I couldn’t if I wanted to.”

She was stared down for a moment longer, and then, thankfully, the axe was removed. “If you’re lying,” The woman brought the axe down. One side of the blades embedded itself two or three inches deep in a sheet of scrap metal. “That’ll be you.” She warned.

Sam got to her feet with a shudder. “I’m telling the truth, I swear.”

“Then catch your breath and get lost.” She plopped down in a chair, produced a screwdriver from her coat pocket, and began fiddling with the sea truck wreckage. “Go on. Get out of here before I change my mind. I’ve got a dog in the other room who could use a snack.”

She knew she should leave. Every ounce of logic she had was screaming at her to get out and never look back. Sam stayed. “Oh, you have a dog? I have a cat back home. His name is Augie. I never introduced myself! Hi, I’m Sam. And you are?” She offered a handshake out of habit.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, too bad. Knowing my name is something you earn.”

“And how do I earn it?”

“You could leave, for starters.”

Sam pouted, and changed the subject. “How’d you get a battle axe?”

“I made it myself. Carved it out of some plating I got off a dead ice worm.” She said, pride evident in her voice.

An ice worm? She’d seen a blurry photo or two taken by the people working in the arctic spires, but she’d never actually gotten a good look at one. “You _carved_ this? It’s not fabricated?”

“You Alterrans and your synthetics.” The woman huffed in annoyance. “I haven’t had a fabricator in years.”

“Is that why you keep stealing things?”

“Might be.”

“How long have you been here? Wait, if you’re not Alterran, how did you get here?” Sam pondered.

“Mind your own business.” She warned. Sam didn’t hear her, too lost in thought.

She couldn’t be from the Mercury, that ship had crashed too long ago. She wasn’t Alterran, which ruled out any of the current expeditions and the Aurora, which left either the Degasi or the Sunbeam, which were only plausible if she could come up with an explanation for how someone had survived the destruction of such tiny spaceships, and then managed to travel thousands of kilometers from the place they had crashed. “You’re impossible.” She concluded. “Who are you?”

A wrench was chucked at her head. Sam ducked, barely dodging it. “Get out.”

“Sorry,” She muttered, inching towards the door. “I’m just curious.” She paused at the bulkhead. “Please, tell me? I just want to know your name. I’ll never tell anyone, I promise.”

Silence reigned for several long, painful minutes. She sighed, refusing to look at Sam. “Are you sure? My name is one that comes with a cost.”

“Yeah. I want to know your name.”

She gave her a look that shifted through emotions faster than Sam could keep up. “Marguerit. My name is Marguerit. Now, get off my seabase before I decide to kill you.”

“Marguerit. That’s a really nice name. Thank you.” She stepped through the bulkhead and shut it behind her, lost in thought. Had she heard that name before? She’d read through every file related to 4546B that she could get her hands on, but it all had blurred together.

She thought about it as she made her way back to the sea truck, where Fred was anxiously awaiting her.

“Sorry I took so long.”

“Sammy, what happened?! You were down there for twenty three minutes! I’d thought you’d drowned!”

She sat down and pulled PengVee out of her bag. “...I’ll tell you later.”

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly the best thing about this fic is that the doc title is “alright. i’m not mad. i just want to know. who stole the bird.” Also yes I gave marg a battleaxe, because she deserves it.
> 
> Will I ever stop writing self indulgent drabbles of characters interacting? No.


End file.
